Sold! Montana’s Yellowstone Club Goes for $115 Million

CrossHarbor Capital Partners LLC paid $115 million to buy Montana’s Yellowstone Club out of bankruptcy court yesterday. The Boston-based private-equity firm agreed to pay $35 million in cash and assume $80 million in debt owed to Credit Suisse. CrossHarbor will also infuse up to $75 million in working capital.

CrossHarbor’s principal, Sam Byrne, is a Yellowstone Club member, and has been closely following its fortunes. In 2008, CrossHarbor attempted to acquire the club for $450 million.

According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the sale capped a week of non-stop negotations in the court of federal bankruptcy Judge Ralph Kirscher. The only other bidder was Credit Suisse, which in 2005 loaned $375 million to Tim and Edra Blixseth, the now divorced couple who jointly founded the club.

As part of the final deal, Credit Suisse will be allowed to co-invest in the club with CrossHarbor. Credit Suisse also received additional assets, including Yellowstone Club real estate and a castle in France that the Blixseths had acquired. Unsecured creditors were recognized by the court as $19 million was set aside to pay local vendors, tradesmen, and others.

This marks the second major bankruptcy ruling in as many months involving Credit Suisse. In April the Promontory Club outside of Park City, Utah, sold to the Pivotal Group for $30 million. Credit Suisse had put together a $350 million loan package for Pivotal, which it used to develop the resort community before seeking bankruptcy protection.

According to the CrossHarbor website, the LLC “is an active investor in the distressed securities market. We invest in a wide variety of securities including real estate loans, corporate loans, and structured securities that are suffering from stress including monetary and/or technical defaults.”

Read more at:
“Cross Harbor Wins Yellowstone Auction,” Bozeman Daily Chronicle, May 18, 2009.

More Coverage on the Yellowstone Club Bankruptcy Case

It wasn’t two years ago that every media outlet known to man was clamoring over one another to give more column inches to the biggest, gawdiest monstrosity in the West: the Yellowstone Club’s record-breaking $155-million home. Though we’ve banged the drum on many an occasion, I’m pleased to say The Land Report did not jump on that bandwagon. But we readily admit to watching the feeding frenzy as those same news channels cover the demise of the elite enclave, including these two incisive reports. Read more

Yellowstone Club Files for Bankruptcy

The world’s only private ski and golf community has sought bankruptcy protection. The Yellowstone Club, an exclusive 13,400-acre retreat in Montana’s Gallatin Mountains whose members include Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates and former vice president Dan Quayle, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal bankruptcy court yesterday. Read more